William Castlehouse was a farmer who lived in the West Riding of Yorkshire more than 300 years ago, leaving few records behind. Still we can learn quite a bit about his life and beliefs if we do a little work. He was baptized 10 Aug 1646 in the parish church of Horbury, near Wakefield, his parents being William and Susan (_____) Castlehouse. This record can be seen on Ancestry.com, but it is a poor photo of a messy page!
The surname on this record is written “Casley,” but I have noticed that people who were definitely Castlehouses are sometimes recorded as Casleys or Castleys in parish registers. George Redmonds confirmed as much in his Dictionary of Yorkshire Surnames, saying that the name “occasionally appears as Castley or Castless.”
Redmonds also stated that the surname was not very old, originating about 1577 when a Liversedge family in the town of Gomersal began using it as an alias, taking the name of their home property, which had been known as the “Castel Howse” since about 1450. Gomersal is nine miles northwest of Horbury, and it is likely that William Castlehouse had roots in that town within just a few generations.
William married Elizabeth Robert on 28 Oct 1673 in Horbury. (In this record his name is spelled “Caslhouse.”) The following year Elizabeth gave birth to their daughter Susannah, who would be the mother of noted religious leader Benjamin Ingham. “Elizabeth wife of William Castlehouse” was buried at Horbury 5 Aug 1691, after almost 18 years of marriage, but apparently having had no children other than Susannah who survived.
“William Casley of [the] parish of Horbury” married a woman named Dorothy Johnson 22 Jun 1697 at Warmfield, which is only about five miles east of Horbury. When William wrote his will on 16 Aug 1704, he left all but 20 shillings of his estate to his “loveing wife” Dorothy, whom he also named sole executrix.
William was buried 26 Dec 1706 at Horbury, and his will was proved 13 Mar 1706/7. It is this will and the attached inventory of his property that help us add color to our portrait of him, though questions remain. Based on the lengthy religious preamble, I believe that William was a devout Christian, possibly having puritanical leanings. A testator of this period does usually commend their soul to God and their body to the earth, requesting a Christian burial, but William goes into much greater detail.
With modernized spelling his will reads: “I commend my self and all my whole estate to the mercy and [illegible] of Almighty God being fully persuaded by his holy spirit through the death and passion of Jesus Christ to obtain full pardon and remission of all my sins and to inherit everlasting life to which the holy Trinity one eternal deity be all honor and glory forever. Amen.”
Another thing I infer from his will is that he may have known how to read, but I think he could not write, since he signed with a mark even though he was “in health of body and of good and perfect memory.”
Also he had possibly already given his daughter Susannah some personal property and/or money, perhaps at her marriage in 1697, but in any case seemed to want to make it very clear that the small amount he conveyed to her under his will was all that she could expect. The will states: “And I hereby give and bequeath to Susannah the wife of William Ingham my daughter twenty shillings…in full of what she or any for her can any ways have or claim to have of my personal estate whatsoever.” I think that his daughter and her husband were already thriving, and probably had no need of an inheritance anyway.
Lastly we get some sense of William’s lifestyle–at least toward the end of his life–from his inventory. The first items listed after his clothes are tables and chairs, kitchen tools including a kneading trough, pots and pans, hearth cooking implements, and pewter. Next are items in the “further parlour,” the “nearer parlour,” and the chamber, so it seems there were at least four rooms in the house. There is quite a lot of furniture including bedsteads, bed hangings, bedding and chests.
Unlike many of my other Yorkshire ancestors’ inventories, William’s makes no mention of wool combs, looms or sheep, and I think this household was not involved in wool production. There is some linen, so perhaps they grew flax. The largest amount of agricultural product however is three loads of beans, so I wonder if that was their main crop or if they alternated beans and another crop, maybe flax. As far as livestock, there are only one cow and one horse.
For further research, and partly for fun, I should look into 17th century Yorkshire farmhouses, country furnishings, and agricultural practices. I should also find out if William, Elizabeth or Dorothy have extant gravestones in the Horbury churchyard. And I should determine the identity of Dorothy Johnson, and find any other marriages she may have had before or after William.
Plough and Anchor Genealogy 